Empathy is the capacity to imagine what someone else might be thinking or feeling; what they want, what they believe and what they fear. And even why they make the mistakes they make. Empathy is also how we recycle our own heart-hurts turning them into opportunities for connection with others
To grow up in Christ takes curiosity. Moses was a felon on the run from Egypt. But now, he’s a husband, father and gainfully employed in his father-in-law’s livestock business. Life is good. That’s when everything changed.
As we grow up in Jesus, we get a glimpse of how we have adjusted ourselves to a world in open opposition to truth, peace, love and justice.
To grow up in Christ will make you settled. See Jesus in the wilderness being tempted by the devil. The devil makes three attempts to lure Jesus away from his identity and purpose.
“…we expend time to gain space and the things of space..…” “But time,” he says, “is the heart of existence.” “The higher goal of spiritual living…is to face sacred moments.
“Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you and pray for those who abuse you.” Those are Jesus’ directives to us who call him lord.
Either we bless ourselves or curse ourselves by our choices. Either we bless ourselves by deciding to be coachable by God or we curse ourselves by being heedless to God.
I know prayer and faithful action are their own reward, but expectations seem to matter with God. Expectation is the first-born child of faith, it is “the substance of things hoped for….”
Jesus suffered, abandonment, rejection, betrayal, abuse, grief and finally murder. He even wondered if his suffering meant that he was “forsaken.”
“Tick-tock” used to refer to the passing of time marked by a second hand on a watch or clock. When Matthew tells his story of Jesus, he often uses a word that points to the rapid elapse of time, “immediately.”